MCBD 2020 Co-Hosts
The following is a list of hand-selected children’s book advocates, writers, and bloggers who work with the MCBD Team by extending the reach and spreading the word of Multicultural Children’s Book Day. They are our CoHosts.
These CoHosts and Global CoHost’s sites will also host the wildly-popular book review/blog post-link-up that occurs during the last week in January. We would appreciate if you could take a few minutes and visit each of these excellent blogs. These reviewers and powerhouse bloggers were selected by the MCCBD team because of their true dedication to supporting diversity in children’s literature.
A Crafty Arab
Koloud ‘Kay’ Tarapolsi is a Libyan American quilling artist and an Arab world & Muslim cultural blogger on ACraftyArab.com. She creates free crafts, recipes & downloads for kids to educate them about the Middle East & North Africa (MENA) region. Her blog also includes hundreds of MENA books, reviews, and book lists for educators to use to diversify their libraries and classrooms.
Kay sells handmade Arab crafts and cards to promote a positive image of Arab culture on ACraftyArab.zibbet.com or select stores in Seattle, WA, and Washington, DC. In 2002, Kay created an Arabic Alphabet Animal line that now includes two posters, game cards, magnets, and a coloring book. Kay teaches MENA art education to various schools in the Pacific Northwest and has been an artist in residence in several summer camps. In her spare time, Kay enjoys being a docent at the Seattle Art Museum and in the Spring, Kay takes adults on an Art & Cooking Moroccan educational tour. She is currently writing a children’s picture book on Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, a shero for her 3 daughters.
Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, G+
Afsaneh Moradian
Afsaneh Moradian has loved writing stories, poetry, and plays since childhood. After receiving her master’s in education, she took her love of writing into the classroom where she began teaching children how to channel their creativity. Her passion for teaching has lasted for over fifteen years. Afsaneh now guides students and teachers (and her young daughter) in the art of writing. Her book, Jamie is Jamie was originally written for her daughter who’d been told that only boys can play a superhero. Afsaneh is also a returning Author Sponsor for MCBD2020!
Connect with Afsaneh via her website or on YouTube and Twitter.
Agatha Rodi Books
Her educational background in teaching students with learning disabilities has given her a broader spectrum from which to approach various learning techniques and expand teaching strategies. She sets up individual teaching programs both in English & French language.
What she enjoys most is writing stories that will encourage students to embrace their imperfections, and ignite their spark.
“Multicultural Books is the best way to promote literacy while embracing language and culture. She considers them as the sole medium to help students respect similarities and understand differences. She believes writing comes from the heart and children’s personal experiences can only transform the world we live in. Current projects involve the setting up of Greek Children Read and Write, a challenging initiative to connect Greek Children around the globe, exchange Greek culture’s uniqueness and promote diversity in the way children see it.”
Connect with Agatha via her Website, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.
All Done Monkey
Leanna is a stay at home mother to two sweet, funny, rambunctious boys and a sweet baby girl! She draws inspiration from the Writings of the Bahá’í Faith and tries to raise her Monkeys in a fun, spiritual, loving environment. She and her husband, who is from Costa Rica, are raising their boys to be bilingual and bicultural but more importantly to be “world citizens.” All Done Monkey is dedicated to sharing this journey with you! All Done Monkey focuses on multiculturalism, children’s education, natural parenting, and spiritual education.
Leanna is the founder of Multicultural Kid Blogs.
Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest
Barefoot Mommy
I’m Rebekah. Mommy, kidlit nut, social justice crusader, and your companion on the journey to raising little global citizens who are ready to change the world. From deciding I create a found worker rights nonprofit when I was fresh out of seminary, to helping my5-year-old write a letter to our Senator about ending deportations, I’ve always had this crazy idea that my life could be aligned with my purpose. I believe that as parents, we have a purpose that’s even bigger than helping our kids become successful.
We can help kids discover how to make our world a compassionate and fair place for every child on this planet. We can show them how to become Justice Kiddos.
Bethany Edward & Biracial Bookworms:
Bethany Edwards is an elementary educator and reading specialist with experience teaching in the US and in international schools. She also offers reading courses for parents/caregivers at Biracial Bookworms Academy. Her goal is to help parents and educators raise readers, activists, and leaders using multicultural and diverse books, culturally rich experiences, and learning multiple languages.
Connect with Bethany on: Pinterest Instagram Facebook Twitter Biracial Bookworms Academy, Goodreads
Michelle Goetzl & Books My Kids Read
Michelle is a parent of two girls and a lover of all things children’s literature. Her blog was born out of a need to find appropriate reading material for her advanced reader and has turned into a place to share interesting books that she and her family have found. Michelle’s passion for multi-cultural children’s literature stems from the fact that she is raising her girls to be Jewish in a community where they are in a complete minority as well as having grown up in Los Angeles where multi-cultural was more of the norm. She loves finding books with really strong female characters who stand up to outdated traditions. When not blogging or reading, Michelle is working on her Masters Degree in Information Science and plans to be a Librarian in a school environment.
Crafty Moms Share
Colours of Us:
Svenja is an adoptive mom and social worker, originally from Germany, living in South Africa. As a mom of adoptive mom of two little black girls, she always searches for multicultural children’s books that have a positive message, and that do not support stereotypes. She shares her findings on her website, Colours of Us.
Svenja is passionate about promoting diversity in children’s literature and toys. She believes that all children deserve to see themselves reflected in the books they read and the toys they play with. Because representation matters!
Connect with Colours of Us via Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram
Discovering the World Through My Son’s Eyes:
Frances Evans is a part-time blogger, mommy, and wife of a beautiful multicultural familia. Shortly before her child turned 4 yrs. old she started blogging about discovering the world through her son’s eyes, hence the name of her blog. She loves doing things with her son and became passionate about teaching him to be bilingual, and to identify with his multicultural identity. She writes about heritage, bilingualism, multicultural children’s book and global culture education with lots of hands-on activities and language learning ideas for kids.
Educators Spin on it
Kim Vij is a certified teacher with over 20 years of experience using her Bachelor’s Degree in Early Childhood Education. She moved from the traditional classroom to raise her 3 children and to be an advocate for early childhood education using a much larger platform online. She’s an organizer of the Virtual Book Club for Kids and co-author of the popular website The Educators’ Spin On It. When she is not creating or pinning ideas for kids for their 1.6 million Pinterest followers, you will often find Kim speaking at events, hosting Twitter chats or discussing with a friend at a playdate about how to help their child learn with developmentally appropriate strategies. Here’s how you can join her weekly virtual book club.
Kim on Twitter, Pinterest, Faceboo
Shauna Hibbitts-creator of eNannylink
Children’s YouTube Channel Storytime with Mrs. Shauna https://youtu.be/hOfC2yYS3z4
FB- http://www.facebook.com/
Instagram Http://www.instagram.com/Mrs_
Growing Book by Book
Jodie Rodriguez has a passion for helping caregivers nurture our youngest readers. As a former National Board Certified early childhood, elementary teacher and administrator, she has worked with thousands of families and educators providing best literacy practices. She lives near St. Louis, Missouri and now stays home with her two young sons. She is the creator/founder of Growing Book by Book. A blog dedicated to helping caregivers nurture our youngest readers. You will find book lists, book-related activities, and literacy tips and tricks for kids ages 0-8.
Pinterest | Facebook | Twitter
Here Wee Read:
I’m Charnaie, and I love to read! In my previous life (before children) I used to read 20 – 30 books a year. Now I have to work at it to read two (adult) books a month unless you count all the books I read to my children and such, in which case I read hundreds of books a year. Since children love repetition many of the books are just the same ones over and over and over (Haha!) I’m a Computer Programmer by education. I have over 15 years of experience in the Information Technology field. I have both a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Computer Science/Information Technology. I’m also a Distinguished Toastmaster something which I’m very proud of. I like connecting people with books they’ll love. I enjoy both fiction and nonfiction books. I read mostly genre non-fiction, fiction (mysteries and sci-fi) and young adult fiction, but I do branch out beyond that occasionally.
In nonfiction, I love biographies and memoirs, personal development, history, Christian living, and parenting books, but I don’t limit myself to those categories; I’m very willing to read about other topics if the writing is engaging.
Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, website.
Joel Leonidas & Descendant of Poseidon Reads {Philippines}
I’m Joel behind the creation of Descendant of Poseidon Reads that started with my obvious likeliness with Percy Jackson series and fondness through mythology, even I like our own myths.
Obviously, I got my spare time spent through reading which varies from Middle-grade books to YA books in genres of (mostly) Sci-Fi, and Fantasy though I choose other kinds of fiction that tingle or attract my attention. Also, I’m a demigod that wanders on this planet, secretly.
Connect with Joel via his website, Instagram Goodreads, and Twitter
Imagination Soup:
Melissa Taylor, MA, is a mother, former teacher, and freelance writer who loves getting kids excited about books. She writes an award-winning learning blog, Imagination Soup, and freelances for publications online and in print. Connect with Melissa on Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
Kid World Citizen
Becky Morales started Kid World Citizen as a way to share ideas from her ESL/Spanish classroom and activities that she did with her kids. Becky an adoptive mom and the cultures in her family’s household include Mexico, China, Ethiopia, and African-American, but has expanded the blog to include cultures from around the world.
Becky loves meeting other globally-minded parents and teachers and sharing ideas to expose kids to world cultures. She has also written The Global Education Toolkit for Elementary Learners to help teachers and homeschoolers increase global learning with their kids (and in it, there is a booklist of over 300+ excellent multicultural titles for elementary learners!). Her Language Latte podcast talks about learning world languages and bilingual children.
Facebook, Pinterest, G+, Twitter, Instagram
Kristi’s Book Nook
Kristi Bernard aspires to write fiction and non-fiction for children and has been an avid blogger since 2009. Kristi graduated from Wichita State University with a Bachelor of Arts in English, and minors in Education and Minority Studies.
She was a chair for the Cybils awards and a presenter at KidLitCon, as well as, a contributing editor for The National Writing for Children’s Center and reviewed books for Tiger Tales Books, The Children’s Literature Comprehensive Database, Kar Ben Publishing, Wisdom Tales Press, Media Masters Publicity, Blue Slip Media and National Geographic Kids and many authors who ask for her help. Kristi has also participated in the Multicultural Children’s Book Day since it was started.
You can visit her social media sites at Kristi’s Book Nook, The Neophyte Writer, Pinterest, Twitter, Go
The Logonauts:
Katie is in her 12th year teaching upper elementary and middle school. She is a life-long reader and enjoys ensnaring others in the web of life-long reading As a traveler, photographer, and former archaeologist, she has visited four five continents (honeymoon in Morocco!), numerous countries, and 41 of the 50 US States. She loves introducing her students to the wider world and fostering their excitement about other countries and cultures. Logonaut was a word invented by Katie and three of her pre-service teacher colleagues while creating a unit on vocabulary-building and word roots. It has as its roots logo (Greek for word) and naut (Greek for ship or nautae, Latin for sailor): word sailor. In their estimation then, a logonaut is someone who sails on the sea of words and shares an appreciation and love of the power of words and language. Connect with Katie via her website, Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter.
Mama Smiles
MaryAnne was raised in five countries on three continents. She currently lives in California with her husband and their four children. MaryAnne blogs at Mama Smiles about building a rewarding family life through mindful parenting and educational and creative family activities. MaryAnne has a Masters in education and Ph.D. in medicine. She enjoys freelance writing and photography.
Connect with Mama Smiles on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram,
Miss Panda Chinese
Amanda Hsiung-Blodgett inspires children to fall in love with learning Chinese language and culture. She is the author of the “Let’s Learn Mandarin Chinese with Miss Panda!” audio album and the host for Playful Chinese podcast. Amanda is also a trained Chinese language instructor and the mother of two bilingual children. She has extensive Mandarin Chinese and ESL teaching experience with kids and business professionals in Taiwan, Morocco, Canada, Ecuador, and the United States. Her students call her “Miss Panda!”
You can find Miss Panda’s engaging, playful, and interactive Chinese language learning resources at MissPandaChinese.com. She currently lives in Washington D.C. with her family, including two lovely trilingual cats, Qwerty and Bella, as well as a bilingual bird, Lemon.
Website | album | Playful Chinese Podcast | Facebook | Youtube | Linkedin
Multicultural Kid Blogs
Multicultural Kid Blogs is a supportive community which brings together parents, educators, bloggers, writers, and artists from across the world. Our mission is to inspire and support parents, caregivers, and educators raising the next generation of global citizens through arts, activities, crafts, food, language, and love. We do this by creating educational and parenting content which celebrates global cultures, languages and belief systems and by promoting diversity in all its forms while recognizing our common concerns and dreams for our children.
Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram
Serge Smagarinsky {Australia}
Serge Smagarinsky {@PictureBK Serge} is a picture book bibliophile and writer. He is currently working on several manuscripts and is also putting together an illustration portfolio.
Serge studied picture book writing at the Australian Writers Centre, as well as learning through countless workshops, conferences, books, and critique partners. He was a winner of the pitching competition at the Creative Kids Tale festival in 2019, and the #50PreciousWords contest in 2018.
Serge writes sophisticated picture books to evoke feelings, provoke thoughts, and inspire action. With formal qualifications including a BE, BCom, and MBA, he relies on his solution design background to help his characters resolve their challenges.
Serge lives in Sydney, Australia with his wife, two kids and pet cavoodle. He is a member of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI), the Children’s Book Council of Australia (CBCA), and is active in social media groups.
Connect with Serge via his website, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest
Shoumi Sen
Shoumi Sen is the creator of “From The Toddler Diaries”, a series of children’s books on Indian culture and mythology. Her books ‘Celebrate Holi With Me!’ and ‘Celebrate Durga Puja With Me!’ have received rave reviews from kids and parents alike! ‘From The Toddler Diaries’ began as a series of poems that Shoumi wrote for her daughter. This collection was the life of several bedtime story sessions and play dates with friends. Inspired by this interest among kids and encouraged by their parents, she decided to publish the collection.
Shoumi Sen is a Strategy, Sales and Marketing professional at a leading global energy management company. She studied engineering at BITS Pilani and The University of Maryland, College Park, and now lives in Los Angeles with her husband and daughter. Her childhood in Paris, Bombay, and Dubai provided her with opportunities to appreciate how Indians preserve their cultural connectedness even while living abroad.
In Shoumi’s words, “Living outside India, it is sometimes tough for parents to ensure that their children remain connected to their Indian roots, while at the same time, appreciating the culture of the place they are growing up in. Books can certainly help with that challenge and my hope is that ‘From The Toddler Diaries’ can play a part in helping our children grow into global citizens.”
When not working or writing, she is busy looking for the next travel destination with her family! Connect with Shoumi via her website, Facebook, and Twitter.
Jennifer Brunk & Spanish Playground
Jennifer Brunk writes about teaching Spanish to children on her blog Spanish Playground. She focuses on communicative teaching and authentic language materials. Jennifer raised her three children speaking English and Spanish and has been teaching Spanish to young world citizens for over twenty years. The challenge of finding quality resources inspired her to create Spanish Playground, a place teachers and parents can turn to for support, strategies, and materials.
Social Media Links: Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram
Katie Meadows and Youth Lit Reviews
My name is Katie Meadows and I am a book lover and mother of two little girls living in the Seattle area. In my early 20s, I worked as a bookseller at Borders, where (among other things) I managed the store’s children’s department. Few things in my professional life have brought me more joy than being able to help children and families find the perfect book. When Borders closed its doors, it led me to create this blog as a way to share my love of children’s literature with people all over the world. Founded in 2012, Youth Literature Reviews features book reviews and carefully curated book lists for children, babies, and teens.
For questions about this blog, or if you are an author, publisher, or brand who would like to work with me, please contact me at youthlitreviews(at)live(dot)com. You can also find me on Instagram and Twitter.
